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The Training Within Industry
(TWI) service was created by the United States Department of
War, running from 1940 to 1945 within the War
Manpower Commission. The purpose was to provide consulting
services to war-related industries whose personnel were being conscripted into the
US
Army at the same time the War Department was issuing orders for
additional matériel. It was apparent that the shortage
of trained and skilled personnel at precisely the time they were
needed most would impose a hardship on those industries, and that
only improved methods of job training would address the shortfall
[1]. By the end of
World War II, over
1.6 million workers in over 16,500 plants had received a
certification.

Contents

Overview

The four training programs developed by TWI were developed in an
emergency situation by experts on loan from private industry.
Because of the intensity of the situation, a large number of
experimental methods were tried and discarded. This resulted in a
distilled, concentrated set of programs.

The TWI trainers had to be invited to a factory in order to
present their material. In order to market the service, they
developed the Five Needs of the Supervisor: every supervisor needs
to have Knowledge of the Work, Knowledge of Responsibility, Skill
in Instructing, Skill in Improving Methods, and Skill in Leading.
Each program was based on Charles Allen's 4-point method of
Preparation, Presentation, Application, and Testing.

The four programs were:

Job Instruction (JI) - a course that taught trainers
(supervisors and experienced workers) to train inexperienced
workers and get them "up to speed" faster. The instructors were
taught to break down jobs into closely defined steps, show the
procedures while explaining the Key Points and the reasons for the
Key Points, then watch the student attempt under close coaching,
and finally to gradually wean the student from the coaching. The
course emphasized the credo, "If the worker hasn't learned, the
instructor hasn't taught".

Job Methods (JM) - a course that taught workers to objectively
evaluate the efficiency of their jobs and to methodically evaluate
and suggest improvements. The course also worked with a job
breakdown, but students were taught to analyze each step and
determine if there were sufficient reason to continue to do it in
that way by asking a series of pointed questions. If they
determined some step could be done better by Eliminating,
Combining, Rearranging, or Simplifying, they were to develop and
apply the new method by selling it to the "boss" and co-workers,
obtaining approval based on Safety, Quality, Quantity, and Cost,
standardizing the new method, and giving "credit where credit is
due."

Job Relations (JR) - a course that taught supervisors to deal
with workers effectively and fairly. It emphasized the lesson,
"People Must Be Treated As Individuals".

Program Development (PD) - the meta-course that taught
management how to develop a training and improvement program

There was also a short-lived course that taught union personnel
to work effectively with management.

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Relationship to Lean

Although the TWI program funding for application of the programs
in the USA by the government ended in 1945, The US government did
fund the introduction to the war-torn nations of Europe and Asia.
Several private groups continued to provide TWI in the US and
abroad. The '4 Horesmen' continued the development of the 'J'
programs by establishing the TWI Foundation. This group was
responsible for continuing the spread of TWI throughout Europe and
Asia. The Director of one of the district offices established TWI,
Inc., and was hired by the US Government to provide TWI training in
Japan. It was especially well-received in Japan, where TWI formed
the basis of the kaizen
culture in industry. Kaizen, known by such names as
Quality Circles in the West, was successfully harnessed by
Toyota Motor
Corporation in conjunction with the Lean or
Just In Time principles of Taiichi Ohno. In
fact, in the Foreword to Dinero's book "Training Within Industry"
(2005), John Shook relates a story in which a Toyota trainer
brought out an old copy of a TWI service manual to prove to him
that American workers at NUMMI
could be taught using the "Japanese" methods used at Toyota. Thus,
TWI was the forerunner of what is today regarded as a Japanese
creation.

TWI had a direct impact on the development and use of kaizen and
Standard Work at Toyota. These fundamental elements are embedded
within the functional system at Toyota and Job Instruction is
taught and used within Toyota today. The kaizen methodology is a
direct descendant of Job Methods, and most likely Job Relations had
an impact on the development and function of the Team and Group
Leader structure in Toyota.

Many of the points above should look familiar to students of W. Edwards
Deming: the PDCA style of the
training programs, the JI litany about failure being on the
shoulders of the instructor, and even the JI and JM methods
themselves. Deming lectures frequently included statements similar
to the JR slogan, "People Must Be Treated As Individuals."

In Dinero's introduction he goes as far as saying that one of
the key differences between more & less successful Lean
Projects was their focus on the "people element" during
implementation.

Why it disappeared
from the United States

One theory for the disappearance of TWI within the U.S. after
the war is the simple fact that North American industry faced
little serious competition in 1945. With no competition to an
efficient industry, few saw the need to continue to improve. At the
same time, foreign industries had been decimated. The defeated
countries needed to establish new industry but to reject the old
culture. For that purpose, TWI trainers were brought to Europe by
the occupying forces there, and to Japan by MacArthur
during the occupation.